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Saturday, May 21, 2016

Scary Stories Are Good For Children–Don’t Touch The Brothers Grimm!

Many years ago a counselor at a camp on Cape Cod liked
scary stories, was a good storyteller, and liked children. Every night after
lights out, the campers in his cabin begged him to tell them about Three Fingered
Willy, a ghoulish character who preyed on children. Every night the counselor told the same
story – Three Fingered Willy coming through the woods in the dark. He told of
the cracking branches, the pouring rain, and the flashes of lightning that lit
up his deformed, ghoulish face. In his telling Willy was a zombie who needed
fresh human blood for survival – particularly warm, new children’s blood.

The woods were quiet. Occasionally a chipmunk stirring in his sleep chirped
and snuffled in the old leaves. An owl hooted. A deer looking for shoots
stepping lightly over the moss snapped a twig, looked up, then quietly walked
towards the brook.
Suddenly, all sounds in the forest stopped. Chipmunks stirred, poked their
heads up out of their nests and remain frozen. The owls didn’t hoot. The snakes
didn’t slither. The worms stopped wriggling through the mud and dead leaves.

Then, slowly but deliberately, a heavy footfall was heard from the deepest
part of the woods. This was no deer or elk, not even a bear which walked
quietly. The steps became louder and louder and came closer to the cabin in
which the boys were sleeping.
One boy woke up and whispered, “It’s Willy”, but before he could finish, they
all heard a scratching on the cabin walls….

There was not a sound in the cabin as the counselor told the story. Not a cough or
rustle, not a creak from the old cots, no movement of the bedclothes.

At first the counselor wondered whether or not the boys could get to sleep after that;
but if after the routine of teeth, pajamas, and lanterns out, he started to leave
without a story, they stopped him. They couldn’t get to sleep without
Three Fingered Willy.

Although he the action of each installment in a different place - Willy in
the high Sierras; Willy in the Louisiana swamps; Willy in the Canadian
forests – the story and the character of Willy remained the same. As the summer
went on, Willy became even more hideous and ghoulish. At first his face was
simply misshapen, grotesquely arranged, scarred and pocked; but later on his
face disappeared, and headless he appeared at the door of the cabin, silhouetted
by the one light that shone from the main house. He became a ghost, a werewolf
that howled in the forest and came dripping and bloody into the cabin. He was
ten feet tall with arms that could reach the tops of trees. His nails were like
sabers. His eyes glowed yellow.

This of course could never happen today in an age when even the most tame
fairy tales are edited, made safe and non-threatening. There are many versions
of Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel, two of the
Brothers Grimm’s most popular fairy tales. In one Hansel and Gretel do not push
the wicked witch into the oven and cook her, but simply escape and make their
way back home. In other the wicked wolf does not eat Little Red Riding Hood’s
grandmother nor is he slaughtered by the woodsman. Little Red Riding Hood, her
grandmother, and the wolf all escape with their lives.

The world according to these new versions is not a perilous, sinister, and
dangerous place, but one of accommodation, respect, and harmony.

Children like adults like scary stories. Grimm’s tales are no different than
Stephen King’s and horror movies are still a staple of Hollywood. For adults
scary stories are entertainments, easy and simple ways to get an adrenaline
rush in otherwise sedate and predictable lives. For children, on the other
hand, such stories are far more important than those which portray the world as
innocent and harm free. Soon enough they will realize just the opposite.

The tendency to protect children from the inevitable is seen everywhere.
Schools make sure to identify, cull, and dismiss bullies. The world is full of
bullies – bad bosses, adolescent girls, catty women, and macho-men – and the
sooner children learn how to deal with them, the better. Some may confront and
challenge them, forcing them to back down. Others may stay clear, while others
may make deals and compromises. Bullies are important for children.

Children do not believe in witches, ghosts, or ghouls. Wolves do not talk or
dress up in disguises. Old women do not eat children. Vampires, werewolves, and
zombies do not exist. Yet they could; and the fantasy world of children – a
unique, special place soon lost – is populated by things that could be, fears
that could be realized, horrors that could occur. It is also a place where
children can fly, change into flowers, and jump across oceans.

The best stories combine both fear, magic, and happy resolution. The
Five Chinese Brothers is a good example.

Long ago in China lived a family with five brothers who resembled each other
very closely. They each possessed a special talent. One can swallow the sea; one
has an iron neck; one can stretch his legs; one can survive fire; and the last
can hold his breath forever. When one of the brothers, a somehow very successful
fisherman, agrees to let a young boy accompany him on his fishing trip, trouble
results. This brother holds the entire sea in his mouth so that the boy can
retrieve fish and treasures. When the man can no longer hold in the sea, he
frantically signals to the boy, but the boy ignores him and drowns when the man
releases the water.

The man is accused of murder and sentenced to death. However, one by one, his
four brothers assume his place when subjected to execution, and each uses his
own superhuman ability to survive (one cannot be beheaded, one cannot be
drowned, one cannot be burned, and one cannot be smothered). At the end of the
story, a judge decides that the brother accused of murder must have been
innocent, since he could not be executed, and the five brothers return home
(Wikipedia).

Today’s parents and educators are afraid that exposing children to horror –
even though it is fictitious, imaginary, and impossible – will cause irreparable
damage. Yet they underestimate children’s powers of discernment and have lost
the ability to enter their world of fantasy. A story of a wicked witch will not
increase a child’s vulnerability nor make him timid and fearful; but it may
serve as a counterpoint to his own personalized fears. It is far easier for
a father to explain away monsters under the bed if he has read Hansel and
Gretel or Little Red Riding Hood to his children.

Perhaps most importantly children learn very early on that if a book is too
scary, they can put it down. They can suspend the horror, put it in its place,
and retrieve it when they once again want to be frightened. It is this
manipulation of the real and the unreal which characterizes adult perceptions.
Scary stories deal with torture, murder, death and unspeakable acts; but are
clearly circumscribed within fantasy. They are true tales but only allegories.
We soon learn that the book cannot be closed on real mayhem, but at least we
have learned about it beforehand.

Nick Falk, children’s book author and child psychologist observes:

''When you're reading a book and it's scary, you could choose to turn that
book over and put it down,'' Falk says. ''It's the same with a thought. You
don't have to, when that thought comes into your head, stop everything and pay
attention to it and try and get rid of it. You can actually carry on with
whatever you were doing and just let that image or thought stay there. It's
about giving them the coping skills to be able to do that, so they no longer
have to get rid of the thought or image. They don't have to like it, but they
also know it's not going to do them any harm” (Sydney Morning Herald
3.13.13)

Scary stories are also important in configuring a realistic worldview – a
philosophical universe in which the most outrageous events occur. It is hard
to place holocausts, serial killings, mass slaughter, and barbarity within a
completely rational framework. There is – or should be – an element of fantasy
horror within it.

Titus Andronicus is a play about greed, ambition, power, jealousy,
and vengeance; but it is also a grotesque horror story. Tamora, Queen of the
Goths, encourages her sons to rape the daughter of Titus, then has them cut out
her tongue and chop off her hands so that she will never be able to identify her
assailants. When Titus finds out, he exacts the most satisfying revenge
possible. he kills Tamora’s sons, chops them up and bakes them in a pie which
he serves her for dinner.

Titus Andronicus is an adult fairy tale. Tamora is as wicked as the
witch in Hansel and Gretel; and Titus her cannibalistic alter
ego. Fantasy becomes allegory in this Shakespeare play; and it is no different
from the stories of the Brothers Grimm.

Some fairy tales with no witches, demons, or ghouls are far more scary for
children than those with. Pinocchio, for example, has one of the most
emotionally disturbing scenes of all children’s stories. When Pinocchio is
taken away from his father and driven away on a rainy, dark night in a cart, he
is disconsolate. The receding image of Geppetto, the creaking wheels of the
cart, and the flashing lightning of the storm is frightening and permanent.

Children are more upset by this story than any fantasy that the Grimms could
concoct. It is too close to reality. A child could easily be separated from
his father and be totally lost. The story of Pinocchio could be his.

Fear is a part of everyone’s lives, and most learn to deal with it.
Phobias are so common and so serious that volumes of psychiatric diagnosis and
treatment have been written about them. Although many phobias – claustrophobia,
agoraphobia, and acrophobia – are well known, many others are not. People have
a morbid fear of cats, dogs, dentists, and even marks on a fence.

The world is an increasingly dangerous place, and travellers are rightly
afraid of hijackings, kidnappings, terrorism, and brutal assault.

Does this mean that scary stories really prepare children for the gruesome
future that awaits them? Perhaps not, but since fear is primordial,
inescapable, and universal, tales of horror set within a clear context of
fantasy may indeed be as important as any other early childhood education.

It is discouraging to see how childhood has become a protected species. The
goal of parents and educators seems to be to deny children of any brush with the
real world; to eliminate risk; to shelter them not only from harm but from the
image of it. They encourage a world without sharp edges, pitfalls,
unpleasantness, or disappointment. All children are equal, progressive
educators insist, only different in their type of intelligence, character, or
abilities. Playgrounds are not for challenge, but for risk-free, undemanding,
innocuous play. Books are vetted for insensitivity. Nothing disparaging of
race, gender, ethnicity, physical ability, or intellectual performance can be on
the shelves.

More than anything else, children love scary stories. It was not a
coincidence that my young charges at Camp First Arrow wanted to hear about Three
Fingered Willy again and again – to be frightened silly each and every night,
hanging on every gory word, every horrendous description.

Willy was real for twenty minutes, then he disappeared into thin air; but by
magic he was recalled again and again. Campers who were too young to be
frightened by anything real, too privileged to have real worries and concerns,
were scared witless by fantasy. Fear was innate and needed only to be called
up. Better in a cabin on Cape Cod than anywhere else.